Dilbertian PhD in MR

 Humorous critique so brilliantly done by Scott
Adams , Tom Fishburne and Randy Glasbergen
is great ‘continuing’ education.
 Put up some memes on my FB page and had a
friend ask me if I was doing “a Dilbert on MR ?”
 And so…Most of the memes here point to an
underlying issue , opportunity or just a facet of
MR life! 
Muder Chiba

Market
Complexity
Decisions
Information
Complexity
“ …seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed , but
we must also be aware at the same time that we might possibly be
wrong… our commitment to an idea is healthiest when it is not
without doubt , but in spite of doubt”
-Psychologist Rollo May quoted in Being Wrong Adventures in the
Margin of Error
muder.chiba@gmail.com
Insight Ignited Wisdom

The Market Researcher comes
into MR fresh ,knowledgeable ,
bushy tailed and armed with
the belief that she will add
immense value into business
decisions-making. Learns on
the job , gathers experiences
and then progresses to
feeding templates!
Muder Chiba

MR folk come from a variety of educational and cultural backgrounds.
In the recent past, increased focus on ‘client servicing’ has meant
though that the entry sieve lends itself more to homogeneity and
similarity clusters Muder Chiba

The business of insights is at the core , the business of truths (with a small
t). The Tagore poem referenced here :
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-the-mind-is-without-fear/
Muder Chiba

Art and Science , Planning and Serendipity , Chance and Choice…
Muder Chiba

*Cogitation = MR !
Muder Chiba

Whether you want to have a quiet conversation on alternate universes
and ghosts or fling your hands and legs in gay abandon to the tunes of
the latest teen hit- you need the company of MR folk!
Muder Chiba

An Insatiable need to nose out hidden motivations and desires and
‘implicit needs’ stands you in good stead in MR!
Muder Chiba

Philosopher king , bean
counter , researcher,
businessman ,guru , prize idiot,
thinker , doer, wolf , sheep ,
scholar gypsy, statesman
,politician, friend , philosopher
, guide…
Muder Chiba

Wow ! Now bow ! 
Muder Chiba

Corporatization has brought in greater funding and ability to invest in the
future. Better salaries ,better lifestyles and greater opportunities to have
fun! Concomitantly ,there is pressure on meeting numbers with ever
shorter review periods! Muder Chiba

“ Don’t come with problems , come with solutions!” 
Muder Chiba

… when it starts being seen as abdication , not delegation.
Muder Chiba

MR is no different from other industries . The same challenges-
performance vs. potential ; objective vs. opinion ; fair vs. unfair !
Muder Chiba

No longer is it desirable that you look like a nerd...buttoned down collars
, a notebook , pen and laptop! MR people rock now as always and a
variety of omissions are pardoned if you're photogenic!
Muder Chiba

It’s a people industry which works a lot with numbers ! So MBWA
works…and the Numbers follow!
Muder Chiba

The MR user interface is the
source of great work , stress
and joy in equal measure.
MR users are nice. True. And
they are tough.
They are sharp. And yes ,they
are blunt.
Muder Chiba

With data gaps in “Big Data” type data-sets … acceptance of the
imputation treatment will be key ! For MR , this acceptance will pave the
way for very short surveys and increased multi-data source synthesis
Muder Chiba

Oft-heard in Conference rooms where engineer MBAs congregate!
Quite relevant in a “Big Data” and Web Analytics driven world where
A/B panels are considered testing!!
Muder Chiba

Either you have unwieldy Demographic/Usage micro-segmentations
which basically sequentially dichotomize…or you have 4-6 segment
solutions for which you need not have spent months and moolah!
Muder Chiba

Serious Logic at work here! What’s the measure of your Central
Tendency?
Muder Chiba

Is probability sampling alive and kicking?
Muder Chiba

Universal Issue ! You never need to justify the concepts which pass the
metric filter as much as you need to for the ones that don’t! And given
that most concepts are creative constructs there is angst around the
‘rational filter’ ! Muder Chiba

Metrics built off ‘largely’
 deterministic models
have become staple
outputs .
After all ,you can
manage only what you
can measure!
Muder Chiba

You have all the complex diagrams and equations to shew the
robustness of your metric … and the slide that does it is the one which
shows how the companies/brands that do well on the metric
outperform peers on the Stock market Index!! Muder Chiba

Client Concern : looks like a nice dish but what goes into it and how is it
cooked? Can’t trust it until I know.
Agency Concern : How do I keep my ‘IP’ safe and my brand
unique/differentiated? Muder Chiba

This one is so deliciously right at so many levels! Using longitudinal data
to take decisions is an art too!
Muder Chiba

When trends don’t go the way it is ‘wanted’
Muder Chiba

When trends don’t go the way it is ‘wanted’ !
Muder Chiba

The design drives the
execution. Full Stop.
Muder Chiba

The ‘randomly drawn sample’ so as to ‘adequately’ represent the
universe has been the central challenge. It continues to be so in the
modern MR world.
Muder Chiba

…is the price we pay for our freedoms! Quality data depends on a
combination of robust design and committed quality implementation !
Watch out for the ‘non-sampling error’ gremlin ! And that goes for “Big
data” too!! Muder Chiba

Seriously confusing! The CAPI/CATI pattern has become the basis for
naming interview types…PAPI , CAWi ,GAMPI...
Muder Chiba

The increasing number of ‘platforms’ , the evolutionary stages of
different markets and the speed of change makes for unique challenges
in project execution!
Muder Chiba

With multiple languages , various software interfaces and rapidly scaled
up rollouts , the modern researcher has greater challenges to overcome
than those who came before!
Muder Chiba

Glocalization
With an increasing
number of studies
standardized globally
being rolled out , a
special mention for the
challenges!
Muder Chiba

Central project managers sitting far away from the battleground have
little idea of the ground conditions and therefore design and implement
primarily ‘for’ familiar territory so…
Muder Chiba

Age-old issue ! Scales conceptualised and worded in the lofty towers
don’t translate well when they go ‘out there’ into the field . And when
the towers try to look out to faraway fields…
Muder Chiba

The local client needs are ‘different’ , there are local nuances ,
segments, targets, geos…the challenge is to create structures which can
see with both lenses!
Muder Chiba

The lifeblood of primary MR ,
the respondent. As response
rates fall there is increasing
attention on getting them,
engaging them and
keeping them !
Muder Chiba

Open-ends are the researchers gateway to finding out the unknown –
reduce the ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ gap. But the terse
‘no comment ‘, or ‘nice’ or ‘good’ or ‘sucks’ puts paid to the open-end
as data source! Muder Chiba

The Butterfly Effect! Enhanced respondent engagement may have
unintended social impact! 
Muder Chiba

Respondent identity and privacy are a concern in more ways than one!
Especially when the respondent is ‘playing’ the researcher!
Muder Chiba

There’s always a time when it’s fun , its new and its exciting ! And you
can feel older than you actually are!
Muder Chiba

Questionnaire routing has been the Waterloo for many a study. And
scripting adds an ‘invisible to researcher’ layer !
Muder Chiba

Qual is the seemingly ‘soft fluffy’
area of MR.
There is a lot more of the
eclectic mix of a range of the
Social Sciences here than in
Quant though!
And hard decisions using words
instead of numbers per se as
data.
Fits well into the modern ‘Big
data” world , methinks!
Muder Chiba

The friendly persona envelops Qual across the spectrum as
contrasted to the more ‘stiff-necked’ Quant !
Muder Chiba

Extended Information areas lead to longer and longer consumer
interactions leading to the focus group becoming Extended !
Muder Chiba

With product endorsement !
Muder Chiba

The popular meme played on his ‘3 names’ !
Muder Chiba

DILO :Day in the Life Of!
Muder Chiba

...with sympathy for all my Qual brethren who have been asked
for tally distribution for the 32 people who attended the Groups
as "30 is the sample at which you can do the Student's T test” ! :-)
Muder Chiba

Neuroscience , neuro
marketing … brain mapping ,
facial coding… lots of news
around this exciting new
addition to the researchers
toolkit.
And Big Data ? What do I say?
Muder Chiba

Brain trying to understand the brain trying to understand the brain trying
to understand the brain trying to understand the brain trying to
understand the brain trying to…
Muder Chiba

Eyes are the window to the soul, it is said. The modern equivalent seem
to be the face and its various ‘tics’ as the window to the brain and its
processing !
Muder Chiba

Just don’t say it! Its when the hyper hype around this dies down and the
‘algo’ has been democratised that the final contours will emerge. And
it will be truly life changing in the real sense !
Muder Chiba

In the Gold Rush , everyone is a star prospector!
Muder Chiba

A line in Neil Diamond’s Forever in Blue Jeans, goes- Money
talks but it don’t sing n dance and it don’t walk!
Muder Chiba

The Big Risk is using all data and ‘insights’ coming out of it as
‘real’ !
Muder Chiba

When all’s done and dusted
Muder Chiba

The researcher as impassive observer, aloof and with no opinion
– it’s been a cherished self- image . Given a world which is
object-orientated, where decision-making speed is of essence
...the researcher will need to get off the fence!
Muder Chiba

“In fact, the mere act of opening
the box will determine the state of
the cat, although in this case there
were three determinate states the
cat could be in: these being Alive,
Dead, and Bloody Furious.”
-Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
Muder Chiba
Schrodinger's cat
With the speed of change ,
decisions firmly anchored in
the past will be fraught with
greater risk.
Probabilistic perspectives will
need to come to the fore !

With multiple sources of data , decreasing survey lengths and
increasing data-crunching / matching capabilities… “Art which
rejected single point perspective and sought to show the object
from multiple angles, in differing lights.”
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/analytical-cubism.htm
MuderChiba

After all the data has been wrung dry…using imagination
to spark insight is invaluable!
Muder Chiba

Market
Complexity
Decisions
Information
Complexity
“I have concluded that the essence of wisdom is to hold the attitude that
knowledge is fallible and to strive for a balance between knowing and
doubting” –Psychologist John Meacham quoted in Hard Facts , Dangerous Half-
Truths and Total Nonsense, Profiting from Evidence-Based Management
muder.chiba@gmail.com

Dilbertian PhD in MR

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